Sunday, March 5, 2017

I just had a very interesting interaction with a young lady on Facebook and thought that this would make a good blog post. Here is the original post:

To which I answered:

Which elicited this answer from her.

Because
religion teaches that man is special, that the earth is the center of
creation. Life on other planets would disprove this. What if aliens on
another planet say Jesus is not god? What if they say God doesn't exist
and that they have proof of how the universe was created and can
present it? The bible says God created man and angels, and
animals/plants of course. Catholics say Christ is lord of the universe.
HOw is this possible? Was he born elsewhere and died elsewhere on the
cross? Did he pick disciples there? So far, I think only the Mormons
believe Christ traveled to other planets to preach.

What follows was my answer to her questions and the main body of this blog post.
Enjoy!

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Hi Yesi, First let me commend you on taking time to think about these things. It is my experience that the majority of people never give a second thought to these things. It is refreshing to see someone so young wrestling with these sort of questions.

You said: "Because religion teaches that man is special, that the earth is the center of creation."

First, your use of the term "religion" is too general. There might be some religions who teach what you say but there are others that most certainly don't (Like the Catholic Church, the "CC" from now on). So, for the sake of argument, I will assume you refer to "Christianity" when you use that term. In addition, since I'm a Catholic I will give you the CC version. I make no claims about other "flavors" of Christianity.
Having said this, lets break this first statement down into parts: "Because religion teaches that man is special" The CC teaches that man has "a special dignity" (See the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 1700). The issue of "Is man the ONLY creature in the whole of Creation with this dignity?" is still an open question.
"The earth is the center of creation" The most I can say here without a long discussion is this: when Catholics say this they mean "center" as a "central event". Think about it this way: about 10.4 billion years ago all the energy concentrated in the Big Bang singularity was directed towards resulting on our planet being born and the development of intelligent life. Again, the issue of other planets being born and other intelligent life being developed is still an open question. The CC makes no claims about this. So as you can see, the Catholic position in its essence is the same as the science position: "Wait and see".

You said: "Life on other planets would disprove this."

By my answers above it is easy to see that the discovery of life, even if it is intelligent does not disprove the Catholic point. The most it would do is force us to reinterpret the central event in the history of our planet (i.e. the birth life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ) and what does this mean to all these new "islands" of intelligent life scattered around the universe. (More on this later in my answers)

You said: "What if aliens on another planet say Jesus is not god?".

OK so... what if? Your question seems to imply that because these "aliens" are more advanced than us technologically, WE have nothing to teach THEM. Just look at human history. How many times have we as a civilization lamented the loss of some special knowledge from this or that tribe, or group of people that we have conquered or absorbed? This is an indication that less technological advanced groups can still teach something to more advanced beings. One would hope that the "aliens" have grown enough in their philosophical development to be open to what we have to teach them.

You said: "What if they say God doesn't exist and that they have proof of how the universe was created and can present it?"

Your questions ring more as speculations than as questions. What if it is the other way around? What if they come and say "We have been looking all over the universe for the planet in which the Creator of the universe entered history...and you guys are it". As I see it, the most we can say is that there is a 50-50 chance for either of these two to happen. So again... what if? What if they have been looking for us because of the Christ event? Would this change your mind? That is the problem with speculative questions.
Now lets apply the same answer to my previous question to this one. On the event that your speculation is true... Just because they are more technologically advanced doesn't mean they have everything figured out! I would think that we would take their evidence and place it under the light of our divine revelation and see what it all really means. However we would do this without fear because Catholics believe that truth is universal and that truth is not a concept but a person: Jesus. I am certain (In fact I'm excited about this possibility!) that any "alien's" proof would end up shedding light on His person and it would help us understand Him and ourselves better.

You said: "The bible says God created man and angels, and animals/plants of course. Catholics say Christ is lord of the universe. How is this possible?".

Christ is the Lord of the universe; we can only speak for what we know in our little corner of this universe and what God has revealed in our own history. Why does it seem so far fetched to think that, outside of planet Earth, God has revealed himself to other creatures? Look at the Christmas story (as it is presented in the first few chapters of the Gospel of Mathew), God revealed to "Magi from the East" that he was going to enter history in the womb of a young Jewish girl and then he led them to a back-water town of northern Judea. Why is it so far fetched to think that he has not revealed himself to other intelligent beings? And that he is leading them to a back-water planet in an unremarkable galaxy to meet Him personally?

You said: "Was he born elsewhere and died elsewhere on the cross? Did he pick disciples there?".

This, we can answer with certainty. No. If we look at human history it seems the Christ event was unique to us. Why? Because way before the birth of the Christ, civilizations without any knowledge of Judaism prefigured this coming of a "savior". We we just have to extend this fact to the rest of the universe and I feel we have a better that 50-50 chance to say that this was a one time vent within the history of creation. Now this is a big topic. I would recommend the Roy Abraham Varghese excellent book, "The Christ Connection: How the World Religions Prepared the Way for the Phenomenon of Jesus". If you ever get to read it, we can talk about this in more detail.

I hope my answers give you a different perspective. I would also like to recommend two other books: Jesuit brother Guy Consolmagno's "Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?" So you can get a more extensive exposition of what the Catholic Church teaches about these issues. I would also like to recommend the C.S. Louis "Perelandra" trilogy in which he explores what I have been saying in my post, but as a work of Science Fiction. Lastly, I hope you don't mind but since this answer was so long, I posted it as an article in my blog (at www.DeaconHarbey.com) If you would like to continue our discussion I would ask you do it there since the interface of a blog comment box is more suited to deal with long posts than the Facebook interface.